The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) have made it possible for enterprises to sell products and services by using the WWW to describe offers, using various means such as WWW forms or electronic mail to conduct transactions. This form of selling is based around the catalogue model that originated in the 19th Century, where the WWW site substitutes for the paper catalogue, and the postal service is replaced by the modern online equivalent.
Many enterprises currently use the telephone to replace or augment the catalogue model. A customer can call the organisation and purchase goods and services interactively over the telephone. This has the advantage that a customer can interact directly with a Customer Service Representative (“CSR”), but has the disadvantage that the telephone is a non-visual medium.
The need to handle large numbers of customers simultaneously, and the concurrent need to manage a pool of CSRs, has led to the development of the call centre, and the development of specialised software control packages to determine how incoming customer calls are routed to CSRs.
It is possible to combine the catalogue model of WWW selling with the telephone call centre (and other communication channels) to produce what is often called contact centre. The contact centre is like a telephone call centre, but instead of CSRs handling only telephone calls, they may be expected to handle customer communications in a variety of formats: FAX, electronic mail, telephone and WWW are typical. A contact centre is characterised by multiple contact or communication channels, and a pool of CSRs who interact with customers to provide services, products or support. The contact centre provides the illusion of a single point of contact for customers on a regional, national or even international basis. U.S. Pat. No. 5,848,143 (Geotel Communications) discloses a contact center capable of handling both traditional telephone calls and Internet calls where, in the case of the latter, the customer contact can involve multimedia exchanges.
Users of the public telephone system are familiar with automata in the form of the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. These are used in applications such as voicemail, call centres, and cinema listings, and consist of a recorded or synthetic human voice that offers a menu of choices, and the customer interacts by using telephone keypad tones. More sophisticated automata are finding their way into telephone directory enquiries, into business premises as telephone receptionists, and as “virtual personal assistants” for business telephone users. However, identifying what tasks can be usefully given to automata is itself a challenge.
Callers to call centers are often put on hold pending the availability of a suitable customer service representative. To relieve customer boredom and ensure them that they are still connected, it is usual to play the customer some music or provide information of general interest or about specific promotions.
It is an object of the present invention to provide for the delivery of richer information to a customer on hold, and generally to facilitate the delivery of multiple media types into a communication session.